Aurora woke up with the taste of ash in her mouth and her body pressed flat to the earth like it had no other purpose left. Her lashes twitched and her hands didn’t move. It felt like someone had set her veins on fire then drained her blood with a dull spoon.

She turned her head, or tried to, and flinched at the sound her neck made, like dried bone shifting in a grave. The sky was pale pink, the kind of pre-dawn light that meant she’d been out there for hours, maybe longer, and when she reached blindly for her phone or her car or anything that could take...